Press release archive

Today a cross-party amendment opposing the Government’s proposed temporary exclusion orders (TEO) has been tabled. TEOs would effectively exile British citizens by revoking their passports when outside of the UK - and risk exposing them to torture or delivering them into the hands of terror factions.

Liberty has today announced that Simon Tonkin has won its ‘80th Writer’ competition for his poem, Calais Plage.

To mark 80 years of protecting rights and freedoms, Liberty invited 79 leading voices in literature, including Ali Smith, Malorie Blackman and Kathy Lette, to write an original piece inspired by the idea or word ‘Liberty’ – and launched a UK-wide contest to find a previously unpublished 80th writer to join the acclaimed line-up.

“The breadth and brutality of CIA torture is laid bare – can our own authorities keep averting their eyes? Still no sign of a judge-led inquiry into UK involvement in this shameful scandal – instead the Government’s new Bill furnishes the Agencies with more powers to leave Britons vulnerable to torture abroad.”

“The secret use of RIPA to investigate journalists’ sources will chill anyone who values free speech and a free press. But what’s disturbing is that the abuses detailed in this damning report are the tip of the iceberg.

Responding to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) ruling in Liberty's challenge to Tempora, James Welch, Legal Director for Liberty, said:

"So a secretive court thinks that secret safeguards shown to it in secret are an adequate protection of our privacy. The IPT cannot grasp why so many of us are deeply troubled about GCHQ’s Tempora operation: a seemingly unfettered power to rifle through our on-line communications."

Responding to today's publication of a new Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill, Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty, said:

“This Bill is worse than we feared. Yesterday we learned that the authorities failed to follow suspects with the power and intelligence they already had – today they want more power to make us all suspects. When will they learn?”

Britain's intelligence services do not need a warrant to receive unlimited bulk intelligence from the NSA and other foreign agencies, and can keep this data on a massive searchable database for up to two years, according to secret internal policies revealed today by human rights organisations.